


Here

by StrangerWithMyFace



Category: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Power Rangers (2017), Power Rangers Dino Thunder, Power Rangers in Space
Genre: Drabble, F/M, It got longer, merging continuities
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-08-10
Packaged: 2018-11-23 15:04:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11404896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrangerWithMyFace/pseuds/StrangerWithMyFace
Summary: Been thinking about the 2017 movie and how to make it fit into the larger PR continuity. Some thoughts from Tommy and Kim.





	1. Here

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for not having this beta read. I don't really know anyone in the PR fandom anymore. It has been years. /old lady Titanic

They had all known it would happen. Just not so soon. 

When Andros informed them that Rita had somehow escaped the golden wave--not entirely, he said, she would be different, more like her old self--Tommy had been working with his friends to put things back in place. They had to be ready. Trini redesigned Alpha 5 using old circuitry. Tanya found a new location for a command center. Tommy and Jason used Dino gems to create new Power Coins, just like the old ones. Adam hid them somewhere special. Rocky, Zack and Kat worked on the zords. Once the coins were working again that became easier. 

Bringing back Zordon was the hardest part. That had been Kimberly's idea. She remembered how he existed in the old West, just the same but before he ever met any of them. Billy, of course, was the one to bring this new, yet older, Zordon back. 

It hurt a little. They all wanted to say something to him--goodbye or maybe thank you. But they couldn't because their Zordon was gone. This one would belong to a new team. Tommy knew from working with the Dino Thunder Rangers that Rangers needed mentors. He would've loved to be there for the next team but he wasn't getting any younger. He still had a weird ankle thing to prove it. And most of his friends had already married and moved on. 

Tommy wished that he could move on. 

*

When the sensors indicated that the coins had been found, Tommy called everyone. Well, most everyone. Billy was back on Aquitar; Aisha was studying a new disease in Africa; Trini was negotiating a diplomatic deal; Jason had been redeployed to Afghanistan; Zack was going to be in some musical about a founding father. 

Adam cautioned him not to intervene if it wasn't necessary. Kat said the new Rangers should make their own paths; that it was unfair to force them to live in the shadows of their predecessors. 

Tommy didn't want to interfere, he told himself. He just wanted to make sure everything was working, that the world was safe. 

Just before he got on his flight to Angel Grove, he got a text from a number he didn't immediately recognize. "I need to see them. I am coming. Hope you don't mind," it said. Odd, he thought, he hadn't told Adam or Kat that he was going. Perhaps Adam had told Tanya? Or Rocky?

Then he Googled the area code of the number--Florida. 

Kimberly. 

Of course _she_ had known he was going. 

Tommy wondered what else she knew. Had she heard that Rita had once been the Green Ranger? That Tommy's Power Coin was really hers? That her evil had warped it? Warped him? 

Was that why he was a middle-aged man still obsessed with the Power Rangers, unable to move on like the rest of them had? Would he ever be able to go off and have a normal life like the others had? 

As the plane flew, he thought about Zack and Trini, who went to a Peace Conference. Hadn't they missed being Rangers? Why did they never return when there was a vacant spot, like Jason had? Was Trini happy fixing diplomatic crises and Zack entertaining audiences? Mostly he wondered what it said about him that he still felt like he had to _fight_ to do good. To punch and kick his way to a better world. 

Perhaps there was something of Rita's power still in him. That thought kept him up at night but he never said it aloud. Doing so might make it real. 

But, the rational side of his brain argued, if he still had dark magic in him then he had beaten it back, hadn't he? 

He thought back to those days, when he had been fully under Rita's control. Typically he tried not to dwell on them. The Rangers destroyed the sword and the spell. That restored his free will. But... 

Rita had chosen her path freely. Plenty of evil-doers in history had as well. Being free of a spell didn't make you good, did it?

Tommy rubbed his forehead, frustrated, as the plane landed. This was all too much thinking for him. He'd much rather be fighting a putty. 

Maybe just being surrounded by good people--his friends--and wanting to be like Zordon and Jason had made him who he was. With that all gone, how could he be sure he was on the right path? 

When it was safe to turn his phone on again he had another text from Kim. 

"I'm here," it said.


	2. Planes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tommy sees Kim again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am totally making this up as I go along. Sorry.

"You look terrible," Kimberly Hart said, when she met Tommy at security. 

She looked... the same. He knew that, of course. He'd seen her several times since she left for Florida. But it was always disconcerting. She looked so much like _his_ Kim he always had to remind himself they weren't high school sweethearts anymore. He had to consciously put that distance between them. 

"Thanks," he grumbled in what he hoped was a friendly, light-hearted way. Distanced. 

Kim leaned in and hugged him quickly. "Were you doing math problems on the flight?" she asked. "You have that look, like I need to get Billy to explain something to you." 

"I was very good in math," he insisted, perhaps too petulantly. "I only needed Billy's help once or twice! And I got through MIT and grad school without him." 

Kim rolled her eyes. Aisha had confessed to him once that the girls had all decided "Dr. O" sounded like a porn name and they joked about it behind his back. Suddenly, he wished he hadn't brought up MIT or any of it. 

"I'm just nervous," he finally confessed. She had a way of getting him to talk about his feelings that had once been such a relief, and now it was uncomfortable. 

"Why?" she asked. 

Tommy stared at her and she looks back, confused. He didn't see worry in her face about the fate of the world. "Uh, the coins and Rita and everything?" 

Unexpectedly, she reached in and hugged him again. He tried not to lean into it too much, but he had missed her hugs. It felt comfortable, like before. 

"They couldn't have found the coins if they weren't worthy, right?" she reassured. "And they have Zordon and Alpha to help them; those two can do anything." 

Some people found Kim's relentless positivity irritating. Tommy couldn't help but smile, just a little half-smile though. She was like a human fireplace that warmed your insides. 

"Anything," he repeated. 

"Yep," she said, gesturing around the airport. "Proved it right here." 

Tommy cocked his head to the side? In the airport?

"Oh, right," she said. She squealed a little, but in an adult way. "That was before you. I can't believe I never told you! I FLEW A PLANE." Tommy said nothing. Flew a plane? "Alpha helped me," she added. "So, like, if they can teach this dumb cheerleader to fly a plane? _Anything._ " 

Tommy didn't like it when she called herself dumb. People had assumed she was because she was pink and girly and loved to shop. She never cared what people thought though. 

He should've said that she was one of the smartest people he knew. Instead he said: "You quit cheerleading." 

Kim rolled her eyes again. She made a swooshing motion with her arms, which he knew was meant to represent him missing the point. How many times had she made that gesture to him when he had been moping without a Power Coin?

"You flew a plane," he repeated, knowing she wanted to focus on this for some reason. He hoped this story would reassure him. The fate of the whole world was in the hands of five people they didn't know. 

"Yes," she grabbed his arm excitedly--just like she used to. "Rita did something to my uncle. So I flew back here and landed it, and, you know, landing is like the hardest part..."


	3. Notes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I think I know where I am going now...?

Tommy rented a car. He chose green. Did that mean something? He didn't know anymore. 

"We should start with the high school," Kim said as she got in the passenger seat and buckled up. "Teenagers with attitude and all that." 

"Er," he replied. "I don't think we can pass as students anymore, Kim." 

She waved him away. Since when was she so okay with breaking all the rules? "We just pretend to be parents or something. Poke around." 

It unsettled Tommy to think that they COULD have a teenaged child now, if his youthful fantasies had come to fruition. It wasn't like he hadn't noticed how her skirt flew up when she fought of putties. Sex had never felt on the table though, they mostly held hands and kissed. Maybe because they knew Rita could be watching them at any moment. 

... Or Zordon. Tommy never wanted to give Zordon the impression he wasn't as good and pure as the rest of the team. 

"You are angsting again," she said, startling him as they drove. She whacked him playfully on the arm. 

Tommy tried to smile for her. "Apologies, milady." 

Kim frowned at him. He wondered if she knew he had been just thinking about her skirt flying up. 

Jesus, why did he feel fifteen again? They broke up twenty years ago. He should be over it. 

He swallowed and the car got awkward and silent. 

"Angel Grove looks really different now," she said after a time. "It's like another country." 

"Yeah," he agreed. "The new high school is huge too." 

"You've seen it?"

"Gave a presentation on paleontology there about a year after it opened," he admitted. "One of the science teachers thought the kids would be inspired because I graduated from Angel Grove."

"We're they duly impressed?"

"They mostly texted while I talked. Made me feel old." 

She grinned then. "Kids these days. No respect. They could at least pass notes like us honorable teens." 

Tommy laughed. They had passed some silly notes in Ms. Applebee's class. He still probably knew her handwriting better than anyone else's. 

Which reminded him. 

She's not your girlfriend anymore, Tom.


	4. Curious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kim and Tommy go looking for answers.

Kim knew what Tommy was thinking about the moment that look crossed his face. He really was an open book. (How had they never figured out he was the Green Ranger?)

Discomfited, she leapt from the car as soon as he pulled into the new Angel Grove High parking lot. The place was huge, it looked like a movie set. Ignoring who was behind her, she pushed forward into the building. 

"Kimberly is a good person," a woman said. 

Kim's head snapped up when she heard her name, wondering if she had been recognized by someone. 

But no, this woman was a stranger. She was pleading to a man in a suit who had his arms crossed. 

"She is sorry for sending it; she knows she made a mistake. It's just... Sometimes she acts without thinking." 

Kim stepped forward, wondering. 

The man was not moved. "Some schools would expel her for what she did. She is lucky she only got detention." 

That stopped Kim in her tracks. At first she bristled, who was he to judge her? Then she realized--wait. They couldn't possibly be talking about her. She wasn't a student here. 

She was eavesdropping on a personal conversation. 

Now the woman turned toward Kimberly. A strange sort of recognition passed over her face. "Do I know you?" she asked, confused. 

Kim paused. Did she? 

"Oh, excuse us," said a voice from behind her. Tommy, always coming to her rescue, wore a smile that said he absolutely belonged there. "Hello, sir. We were looking for the parent teacher meetings?"

"Doctor..." The principal's voice trailed off in way that made it obvious he could not remember Tommy's name but was reassured seeing a vaguely familiar face. "Hello, just down the hall on the left."

Tommy took Kimberly's elbow and led her away. 

"They were talking about me," she hissed.

He looked at her like she was insane. "They couldn't have been."

But Kim couldn't shake the feeling that they had been. She just couldn't come up with the right words to explain it. 

Tommy led her down a mostly-empty hall. And she could tell that he wanted to leave. He hadn't been comfortable with the whole "just poke around" idea to begin with. He was about to suggest they go back to the car when another man came down the hall from the other direction. 

The man wore a grim expression. He was about their age and he also looked familiar. Maybe he had gone to school with them? She tried to think of his name, but couldn't find it. 

"Hey, man," Tommy said as way of greeting but there was no recognition on his face. It was just some kind of guy solidarity thing. 

The other man nodded at them. "Hey," he said with a shaky out-breath. Kim got to look at him a bit more closely. He was bearded and wore a truly hideous knit cap. She didn't know him after all, she decided. 

He smelled a little bit like fish. Kim smiled at him anyway. 

"Mr. Scott?" The principal called. 

This time Tommy's head snapped up with Kimberly's. 

"I was just looking for you. We need to talk about Jason."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I want to say that I don't think the texts and the letter are morally similar. They are just two instances in which I find Kimberly to be written out of character. I really wanted movie!Kim to apologize to Amanda or make amends in some way. I have a lot of thoughts on this issue; I won't post them here.


End file.
